!!! NOTE !!! StarCAT has replaced CoolCAT. The image processing is superior to that incorporated in the earlier catalog, and the precision of the wavelength scales was improved significantly. See Ayres (2010) for details.

CoolCAT:

Introduction

This page is a portal into a catalog of HST STIS echelle spectra of normal late-type (cool) stars. The catalog includes those objects in the HST archive as of March 2003 with publicly available STIS data taken in one or more of the echelle modes. Unusual objects like cataclysmic variables, symbiotics, and eclipsing binaries of the Zeta Aurigae class were excluded. For each echelle observation, the individual echelle orders from the standard pipeline processing were spliced together to form a continuous 1-D spectrum. Each spectrum was graded on a scale of A (=excellent) to E (=probably useless for analysis) by considering the cumulative distribution of signal-to-noise over the wavelength bins. If more than one observation was available in a specific echelle mode setting, these were coadded using cross-correlation to align the exposures to a common wavelength scale. If two or more different mode settings were available, the segments were concatenated to form a broad-band spectral tracing. The flux scales of the segments were adjusted, if necessary, to match calibrated IUE NEWSIPS low- and high-resolution spectral energy distributions (as available). A description of the procedures and rationales can be found in CoolCAT Summary (pdf file).

The Table below is arranged by luminosity class, with supergiants at the top, and within each class by descending spectral type. Clicking on p in the second column will return a preview of the spectrum over the range 1150-3050 Angstroms. The spectrum is the thin black line, the green curve indicates the 1 sigma photometric error, and red x's flag bad pixels. Note the logarithmic flux scale. The final four columns of the Table summarize the wavelength coverage and quality of the available spectral material in four representative ultraviolet bands: F[UV]1= 1200-1700 Angstroms, N[UV]1= 1700-2500 Angstroms, N2= 2500-2800 Angstroms, N3= 2800-3100 Angstroms. The grading is on the A[best]-E[worst] scale mentioned previously, and an x indicates no coverage available in that band. Clicking on the grade will return a preview of that specific wavelength interval.

The Mnemonic is a link to a second table for each object, listing the individual, and combined, processed spectra, and providing links to previews of each spectrum, including an assessment of the image quality. If an IUE calibration was performed for that object, a preview will be linked. Downloadable versions of the processed spectra are simple flat ASCII .txt tables with FITS-like headers summarizing identifying information. A description of the header keywords can be found in Header Keywords.

Contents of the Catalog

Notes. Stellar data from SIMBAD. V and B-V in magnitudes, Parallax in milliarcseconds, RadVel is radial velocity in km/s (v denotes variable owing to binary orbit). Bracketed values are errors; tildes indicate missing values. An asterisk on the grade indicates that the quality is mixed between that grade and the next one higher.

Acknowledgments. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained from the Data Archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. Support for CoolCAT was provided by NASA through grant HST-AR-09550.01-A from STScI. The SIMBAD database is maintained by CDS, Strasbourg, France. Top-level web pages draw heavily from the Library of IUE NEWSIPS SWP Echelle Spectra for White Dwarfs.